DC-DC converters are typically used in battery operated devices such as portable computers, portable telephones, and personal digital assistants to regulate the amount of power supplied from the battery to the device. The life of the battery in a portable device depends on the efficiency of its power circuitry. The ever-increasing demands for greater power supply and longer lasting battery power have, therefore, made efficiency in DC-DC converters an important factor for designers.
The efficiency of a DC-DC converter can be improved if certain characteristics of the semiconductor switching devices of the converter are improved. Specifically, when power MOSFETs are used in a converter lowering of the on-resistance, the gate charge and increasing the current capability of the MOSFETs will contribute significantly to the efficiency.
One way to improve the key characteristics of a power MOSFET, for example, the ON resistance of a MOSFET, is to increase the density of the cells of its active area. The increase in the cell density in a power MOSFET, however, may be restricted by the condition of the material used to form the device and the inherent limitations of the process used.
Photolithography is one specific area of processing which imposes restrictions on the reduction of device features. One material condition that imposes limitations on the reduction of the features in a MOSFET is the surface planarity of the die in which the device is formed. Generally, when the features of a semiconductor device are made smaller and thus the density of the features is increased, the surface of the die (or the wafer in which the die is part of during processing) must be made as flat as possible in order to allow for the proper imaging of the features of the device during photolithography. As the density of features is increased the surface planarity of the die becomes a critical factor.
It is thus desirable to overcome the limitations of the prior art in order to obtain a device with a higher density of active cells.